“He only arrived from England three days ago.”

“From England?  How did he get in here?  I mean, on whose recommendation?”

“Mr. Pett offered him the place when we met him at my sister’s in London.  We went over there to see my sister, Eugenia—­Mrs. Crocker.  This man was the butler who admitted us.  He asked Mr. Pett something about baseball, and Mr. Pett was so pleased that he offered him a place here if he wanted to come over.  The man did not give any definite answer then, but apparently he sailed on the next boat, and came to the house a few days after we had returned.”

Lord Wisbeach laughed softly.

“Very smart.  Of course they had him planted there for the purpose.”

“What ought I to do?” asked Mrs. Pett agitatedly.

“Do nothing.  There is nothing that you can do, for the present, except keep your eyes open.  Watch this man Skinner.  See if he has any accomplices.  It is hardly likely that he is working alone.  Suspect everybody.  Believe me . . .”

At this moment, apparently from some upper region, there burst forth an uproar so sudden and overwhelming that it might well have been taken for a premature testing of a large sample of Partridgite; until a moment later it began to resemble more nearly the shrieks of some partially destroyed victim of that death-dealing invention.  It was a bellow of anguish, and it poured through the house in a cascade of sound, advertising to all beneath the roof the twin facts that some person unknown was suffering and that whoever the sufferer might be he had excellent lungs.

The effect on the gathering in the drawing-room was immediate and impressive.  Conversation ceased as if it had been turned off with a tap.  Twelve separate and distinct discussions on twelve highly intellectual topics died instantaneously.  It was as if the last trump had sounded.  Futurist painters stared pallidly at vers libre poets, speech smitten from their lips; and stage performers looked at esoteric Buddhists with a wild surmise.

The sudden silence had the effect of emphasising the strange noise and rendering it more distinct, thus enabling it to carry its message to one at least of the listeners.  Mrs. Pett, after a moment of strained attention in which time seemed to her to stand still, uttered a wailing cry and leaped for the door.

“Ogden!” she shrilled; and passed up the stairs two at a time, gathering speed as she went.  A boy’s best friend is his mother.

CHAPTER X

INSTRUCTION IN DEPORTMENT

While the feast of reason and flow of soul had been in progress in the drawing-room, in the gymnasium on the top floor Jerry Mitchell, awaiting the coming of Mr. Pett, had been passing the time in improving with strenuous exercise his already impressive physique.  If Mrs. Pett’s guests had been less noisily concentrated on their conversation, they might have heard the muffled tap-tap-tap that proclaimed that Jerry Mitchell was punching the bag upstairs.